Spillway

Spillway

At the Ballard Locks, there’s a mist that hangs over the spillway, the meeting of nature and machine, sending and suspending droplets across the sky and onto my camera lens. There’s the beeping red alert of an opening lock, the smell of fish and salt, and the clatter of gulls overhead, swarming across the canal that connects Lake Union to Puget Sound. Under the turmoil of seawater and storm, the silent passage of the big guys . . . the Coho and Chinook who swim next to glass on their ladder . . . and the flat fish, flounders and sole, seen and unseen by diving birds and fishing filament.

Ballard Lockish: The Photos

Part of the 235-foot spillway at the Ballard Locks (aka Hiram M. Chittenden Locks). The spillway controls water levels in the canal, which runs between Puget Sound and Lake Union in Seattle. (Shot at 1/4 sec to smooth the falling water.)

Thanks very much Ellis and Dan. The cormorant capture was pretty lucky in that he (she?) fished the entire time but only caught the one while we were there. I love the cormorants, too. Piercing eyes, agile moves.

[…] and smolt flumes at the confluence of salt and fresh — that brackish transition known as the Ballard Locks. The installation was a joint effort by BNSF, Seattle City Light, Seattle Parks and the Washington […]

Great captures and story! I initially noticed your “cormorant vs flatfish” shots. So did the bird really manage to gulp down that huge fish? Does the poor prey get swallowed basically alive if so as well?!

Hi, Kyle, thanks so much for the comment. I’ve retired this blog but have kept comments open on the older posts, so I appreciate your kind interest. On the prey — no matter how many times I see these actions, it’s still tough for me to witness since I do empathize with the animals. And yes, the cormorant eventually swallowed the flat fish but it looked as though it managed to kill the fish first. With fish, I’ve seen herons kill large fish before swallowing, but with fish-eating birds like herons and cormorants, that’s not always the case. My understanding is that the fish would die very quickly after being swallowed (if they are still alive), but I’m not 100 percent sure.